The Woes of Haymitch Abernathy
by Animic
Summary: After the 50th Hunger Games, Haymitch Abernathy is the mentor for every tribute from District 12. Each year, he sees tributes he loves being killed in various different ways. Tributes that have lives and stories. This is the life of Haymitch Abernathy from the end of the 50th games to the 74th, and why he became an alcoholic (short chapters).
1. The Winner

**The Woes of Haymitch Abernathy**__

Yes, I know, why the hell am I starting another story when I have so many others that are unfinished. But I couldn't resist myself. So, this is just going to be...about maybe 14 short chapters long. I was originally going to make it a one-shot but I liked the idea of breaking them up. Here's why.

Every chapter, aside from this one, is going to go through the tributes that Haymitch Abernathy taught and were killed. I might clump some of the ones at the end into one chapter since he'll probably start to care less and less...but I'm gonna try to make it at least ten.

Basically, it's going to be what Haymitch went through from his victory at his Hunger Games up until the 74th.

Hope you like it!

Animic

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**I**_  
_The Winner

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_ May I present the winner of the 50th annual Hunger Games, Haymitch Abernathy!_

The winner, they called it. Yeah, right. Two weeks later he comes home to find nothing but blood and agony. The capitols revenge on him for simply using what was given to him while they were trying to put him in a situation of homicide. They call him a winner, he's not. They give him a house, clothes, money, anything, everything he could possibly ever want or need. Everything except for love and comfort. Soft words from those he trusts telling him that it was all over now. That he was home and they loved him.

They held a funeral for them after he got back to his district. All the people from district twelve who were so proud of Haymitch for making it through, and even more proud for being there for his district partner, felt for his loss. Being in District twelve, they knew the brutality of the capitol. You didn't have to experience the Hunger Games firsthand to know that everyone who lived in the capitol were soulless evil weasels, and the authorities even more so. They knew not what death was. It had been desensitized in their brains. Their evil, rotting brains. However, on the other side of the world, lived people with hearts. With emotions. Living in the crazy state of mind that death was a tragic thing, not something you throw parades for at the beginning of a bloodbath.

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Haymitch…" a woman said. She was the mother of Maysilee Donner, his District 12 tribute partner in the Hunger Games. A girl that he'd come to care for throughout the past couple months. "I wanted to thank you, actually. You…you did the best you could, which is more than anyone else would have done. You're a very brave young man…I'm so sorry."

"Thank you," was all he replied back. What else was there to say? How else was he supposed to respond? For the past week, Haymitch has been walking and breathing in complete shock not knowing what was happening, who was talking to him, what he should be doing. He was lost.

There were three coffins lined up in a row. Well, they were more just wooden boxes than coffins. Around the bodies, instead of a comfortable inside, was just hay and grass and whatever else they could find. Haymitch put a spare pillow behind the back of each of their heads. His mother. His younger brother. His girlfriend. All of them felt the fury of the capitol for his actions. For what he had done. It was a nightmare.

All the people that Haymitch ever cared about, there were very few. His father, he never knew him. Died when he was very young, on natural vices. Something in the air. Something he ate. No one really knew what it was. His mother and little brother managed to survive, at least for a little while. Haymitch wasn't sure why he was so shocked that the capitol would kill his little brother, who was only eleven. They did, after all, have the Hunger Games where they watched children brutally killing themselves for entertainment. What was he thinking? He should have just laid down to die.

"It's not your fault," another woman told him as he knelt beside the graves of his loved ones. This woman was the mother of his girlfriend. The girl that had died because of him. She should be furious…Haymitch still doesn't know why she wasn't. "One day, maybe, you can have your revenge…one day, maybe, you'll make them pay." Haymitch looked at her. Had she read his mind? "But today is not that day. Remember that." She kissed his forehead and allowed him to mourn in peace. That and reflect on what she had said.

One day.

Maybe.

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Thanks for reading! Review one day? Maybe? haha


	2. Ender and Corin

**The Woes of Haymitch Abernathy**

Wow, exactly a month later, I update. haha. Hope whoever's reading is enjoying.

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**II  
**Ender and Corin

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Each day went by slower than the one before but, before Haymitch knew it, it was Reaping Day again. It was time for the 51st annual Hunger games, the anniversary of the day that changed his life forever. Every day since then, he'd sat in his room by himself. Crying himself to sleep. Waking up from nightmares. No one to comfort him or tell him that it was going to be okay.

No one, and now he had to live it all over again. Watching the Hunger Games, before, had just become a trivial thing that he was required to do. You have to eat, you have to sleep, people die, you're alive, you feel sad, you feel guilty, life goes on, but now…now, there was something at stake. There would always be something at stake.

He remembers his first tributes well. He remembers them like it was yesterday.

Their names were Ender and Corin.

The boy was thirteen years old with dark, dark brown hair. His eyes were as gray as stone and as cold as ice. He rarely spoke but, you could tell, there was death in his voice. He knew what was to come of him. He knew what was expected, but there was a sense in him that told Haymitch he wasn't going to go down without a fight.

The girl was older, around the age of sixteen. She spoke, often, of her older brother and it was clear that the two of them shared a special bond. Corin wasn't particularly gifted in anything. She could run, that was all she could do. Speed was her best and only friend. It wasn't much…but it wasn't nothin'. Haymitch remembered tellin' her that. "You can run, and that's not nothin'. Trust your instincts. Feel, don't think. You're faster than they are. You're smarter."

Perhaps that's what Haymitch was telling himself. He was coaching these kids. They looked up to him. They knew what he had done. How he had outsmarted the capitol. They trusted him…he just didn't want to let them down.

Through the beginning process, his kids did decently okay. Ender got a five in his training and Corin, a seven. Those were good odds. They weren't great, and, being from District 12, they certainly wouldn't get any sponsors, but maybe they could survive. Maybe.

They didn't.

Ender put up a pretty decent fight at the bloodbath, but was one of the first ones dead. A career found him trying to get a backpack that Haymitch had specifically told him to avoid. Avoid the bloodbath at all costs. You're little, and they'll notice that right away. He thought he could weasel by unnoticed. It didn't play out that way.

Corin took his advice. She ran. However, running can only get you so far. When you're in the middle of a desert, and you're parched and you have no sponsors…you're as good as dead. Corin died of dehydration less than a week into the game. True, she didn't die from someone else's hand, but Haymitch would rather be put out of his misery than starve for a week and slowly find death. It must've been painful.

He'd witnessed the death of two people that he had grown to love over the past month. He'd trained them and gave them every piece of advice he could. It wasn't until after they were dead did he realize that he was like a farmer training pigs for the slaughter. They were dead when their name was called.


End file.
